Shades of Blue
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Paris, 1882, the Doctor and Martha sense that something is amiss aboard the TARDIS. A stranger is in their midst, but who is he and what does he want from them? More importantly, what can a Time Lord and a Medical Student learn from a madman?
1. Cornflower Blue

**NORMALLY, I SCOFF AT WEIRD CROSSOVERS, BUT I MADE AN EXCEPTION THIS TIME. A FRIEND OF MINE CONVINCED ME TO ANSWER TO A POSTING FROM A LIST OF CHALLENGES RELATING TO "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA" CROSSOVERS. APPARENTLY, NO ONE WAS SIGNING UP FOR THE PHANTOM/DOCTOR WHO CROSSOVER, AND I WAS THE ONLY PERSON SHE KNEW WHO WAS FAMILIAR ENOUGH WITH BOTH UNIVERSES TO WRITE A VIABLE STORY. OR SOMETHING.**

**ANYWAY, IN KEEPING WITH MY USUAL STYLE, THERE IS ROMANTIC ANGST BETWEEN MARTHA JONES AND THE DOCTOR, AND THEY ARE ABOUT TO COME FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE LITERARY GODFATHER OF ROMANTIC ANGST... I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.**

* * *

CORNFLOWER BLUE

London, 2007, across the street from Sparrow and Nightingale Antiquarian Books and Rare DVDs, next to Josef's Hairstylist shop. As their adventures went, it was not exactly an exotic locale for her, but the work involved was plenty unusual. Martha Jones groaned as she scrunched up her face and wiped globs of green goo off her clothes. "Ugh. If I never see another giant alien lizard egg, it will be too soon,"

The Doctor was standing nearby doing very much the same thing. He stopped, looked quizzically at her, then smirked. "There's something you don't get to say every day. Well done."

She climbed out of her brown mesh cardigan and held it up, assessing the damage. "Well, I suppose if we can get it to a good dry cleaner..."

"Oh! I know a planet that specialises in that!"

She smiled at him. "Okay. But I was just thinking I know a place right around the corner. But if you'd rather travel across the universe, I won't argue."

He looked at her with his nose and chin in the air, still with the smirk. His expression seemed to say, "Cheeky girl!" But in response, he disentangled himself from the rucksack filled with arrows that he had taken from Martha in a desperate moment, and the longbow draped across his shoulder. Then he peeled off his tan trenchcoat.

"Lucky I took off my tie before going in," he said. "That one was my favourite – wouldn't want it splashed with lizard blood."

He handed the coat to Martha. She took it without question or protest and draped it over her arm. "I'll do this, you get lunch?" she asked.

"All right," he managed to say using a high-pitched tone, no actual words. "Curry?"

"Nah, Chinese."

He pulled a face. "Pizza?"

"Yeah, that. Leporello's is just a block that way."

"Okay. The TARDIS is parked on Queensway across from the Bayswater station."

"Yep. Meet you there in half an hour."

"Yeah."

They went their separate ways for the time being. She went around the corner to Pappas' Dry Cleaning and Pastries.

"Ah, Miss Jones," he exclaimed as she entered. "You've come back!"

"So it would seem," she said with a smile.

"You wait here. I have your dress."

"Oh! Okay." She waited in the lobby as Mr. Pappas disappeared behind the strips of opaque plastic hanging from the doorjamb. When he returned, he was carrying a wrapped garment that must be the bridesmaid dress she had worn about two weeks before it began to rain upwards at the hospital and her life changed forever.

"The shrimp cocktail is a bugger to remove," Mr. Pappas told her in his thick Greek accent, hanging it on the tall hook. "But it should be good as new now."

"Thank you," she said, rather surprised. She had entirely forgotten she had brought that dress here. With exams and Leo's 21st and Annalise, she had had _so much _on her mind at that time, a blue satin dress was the least of her worries.

She loaded up the counter with the two garments. Hers was a tiny brown fitted thing, and the Doctor's trenchcoat, of course, totally overwhelmed it. Mr. Pappas zeroed in on it immediately.

"What's this?" the five-foot-five dry cleaner asked, hefting the tan coat to its full height. He turned it round and round draped on the tip of his finger, looked at it with amusement, and then at Martha. "Is there a new man in your life, Miss Jones?"

"I guess you could say that," she said flatly.

"A doctor like you, I hope," he probed, referring to Martha's projected profession.

"Yes, a doctor. But not like me."

"A tall man, by the looks of it," he commented, this time referring to the coat.

"Yep," she sighed. "Tall and brilliant. But also strangely clueless."

"Well, Miss Jones," he said to her, draping the long coat over his arm. "Sometimes men need to be _shown_. Not all males are sensitive and responsive to subtlety like yours truly." He said this, then laughed heartily to show it was a joke.

"You can say that again," she said, rolling her eyes. She dug into her pockets for some money. She handed him a tenner. "Thank you, Mr. Pappas."

He grabbed her hand as he took the money. "Honestly, all joking aside. If he is clueless as you say, then perhaps he needs a bit of persuasion. I'd hate for you to miss out on something _brilliant_ because you were too afraid... and for him to miss out on a pretty girl like you."

Far from pulling her hand away, she felt oddly comforted by his warm smile, and sighed again. "I know. But it's complicated."

"Life is complicated. We do our best with what we've got." He let go of her hand.

"There's... someone else. Sort of an ex."

"She won't go away?"

"It's not that. It's not her fault. He just can't get his mind off her."

"Ah, I see," he said. "That requires a bit more manoeuvering. Like I said, Miss Jones, he needs to be _shown_."

She stared at him, but the wheels were turning. She'd spent now nearly nine months with the Doctor and she had long since given up on "manoeuvering." She had managed to convince herself that she was content to accept his little hang-up on a blonde in another universe, and simply be the best friend that he so badly needed. She wasn't sure she even wanted to throw herself into that particular fray again, but she did mull over, quite thoughtfully, what Mr. Pappas said.

She smiled brightly, warmly. "Thank you, really," she said. "Erm, is the tenner enough?"

"Oh yes yes, more than enough for you, Miss Jones," he told her. He gathered up the two coats in his arms as Martha gathered up her dress and turned to go. "Miss Jones?"

She turned back. "Yes?"

"You forgot this. It was inside Doctor Clueless' trenchcoat. Hmm. The pockets seem to be bigger on the inside."

She reached out and took the purple plastic portfolio in her hand. It was the packet of information that the girl from the DVD shop down the street had given the Doctor. "Thank you," she said, before leaving.

She boarded the Underground not far away, and as the train jetted through the tunnels, she stared at the information packet. The girl (what was her name... Sally?) had said that the Doctor was, sometime soon, to be stranded in the year 1969. How she knew this, Martha had no idea, but she seemed like a nice person – clearly smitten with the Doctor, but then, who was she to cast stones for that?

But _stranded_ in 1969? She laid the dress across her lap, opened the packet and read a bit. She learned that the Doctor and his companion (it _was_ Martha, according to the DVD Easter egg transcript) were to be stuck without their time vehicle in London of 1969 for an unknown duration. However, it would be long enough that Martha would have to get a job to support the two of them, apparently while the Doctor worked out how to use Sally's instructions to get them out of there.

Oh, that was not good. That meant probably _months_ she would be with him, trapped without the TARDIS, likely living together, playing house. Worst case scenario: they'd have to pretend to be husband and wife in order to be allowed to rent anywhere that didn't have fleas, and they would have to share a bed. If that was to happen, then she would be in even more pain than she was in now. Traveling together in an infinitely large spaceship was one thing, but if she didn't want to be sharing a bed (again) and playing at marriage with Doctor Clueless, then for her own sanity, she needed to do something. She either needed to get over it, or do as Mr. Pappas said: _show him._

She exited the Bayswater station and crossed the street. The TARDIS was just hanging about, weirdly unnoticed as always, right next to a Tesco. She pushed on the door, but it was locked. That meant the Doctor hadn't returned with the pizza yet, so she used her key to get inside.

She placed the info packet on the navigator's chair, then wandered back to her room to put the dress away.

It was wrapped in white plastic which was tied off at the bottom. She hung it on the peg inside her closet door and unwrapped it. Contrary to the nasty reputation most bridesmaid dresses carried, she had really loved this dress, and had enjoyed wearing it – she had loved how she looked in it, and so had lots of men at the reception! She smiled at the memory. She had taken Oliver Morgenstern to the wedding as her date, which was fun, but dancing with a gay man provided few prospects. She had never turned so many heads in her life, though, and that had been enough for her, for the time being.

Impulsively, she decided to try the dress on. After being splattered with alien lizard goo, she needed to change her clothes anyway, and she could use a bit of a pick-me-up. She had no idea how long before the Doctor came back, but it didn't really matter – it's not like he was ever interested in entering her bedroom. He could wait for a bit.

She pulled the pink scarf from her head with one quick motion and grabbed a spider clip from the vanity and pinned her hair up. Then she stripped down to only her knickers, took the dress from its hanger, and stepped into it.

It was a strapless A-line gown, in cornflower blue satin, with a lacy, cream-coloured embroidered pattern crawling its way across the hem and bustline. A cream-coloured sash stretched across her middle, and she did her best to tie it behind her back. It accentuated her dainty waist and sculpted arms. The colour was perfect against her liquid dark skin tone, though it did not exactly match the pink eyeshadow she had put on that morning. She wished she had the faux-diamond necklace she had worn before, and the matching earrings, but... oh well, the necklace and earrings she was wearing were fine for a quick flight of fancy.

She admired herself in the full-length mirror, which is not something she'd had a chance to do very often of late. Her life had been about running and fighting aliens and saving planets, laser this, sonic that, and a man who wouldn't notice her appearance if she showed up at the breakfast table naked. Not an environment conducive to playing dress-up.

But today, she sighed with satisfaction, and a bemused smile on her face. She made a mental note to buy a new dress every now and then as a treat for herself. She'd forgotten how good this felt.

She had also forgotten to close her bedroom door, and when the exclamation of "Oh!" came from the doorway, it startled her terribly. Her face grew hot, and the unpleasant rush spread down the rest of her body.

"Doctor!" she cried, her hand at her chest which was threatening to split open from the harsh beating inside. "God, you scared me to death!"

The expression on his face was frozen in a surprised "O" for a few moments, and then he seemed to shake it off. "S-Sorry," he said, placing one hand on the back of his neck, not making eye contact. "I didn't mean to scare you. The door was open, and..."

"I know, I know," she said, taking a few steps toward him. "I should have closed it, sorry. So, ready for lunch?"

He met her eyes, and just looked at her for a moment with wide-open, shocked eyes. Then he said, "W-what? Oh, oh, yes... y-yes."

"I'll just change," she said, signaling for him to leave. But he did not.

His wide-as-saucers eyes traveled from her eyes all the way down to the cream-coloured embroidery near the floor, and back. There was no lasciviousness on his face, no amusement or bemusement, but when he did that, the unpleasant blush spread down her body once more.

"What?" she asked.

"What?" he echoed, snapping out of some kind of stupor. "S-sorry, I'm just..."

"What?"

"Surprised."

"Surprised at what?"

"You look..." and in lieu of an adjective which he could not seem to recall, he simply exhaled quickly through pursed lips.

"Thank you," she said, coquettishly not meeting his eyes. The spreading blush was back, but more pleasant this time.

"That dress is... be-beautiful, just..." he sighed, at a loss. "Beautiful."

"Thank you."

He took two steps toward her and took her hands. He looked into her eyes, not for the first time, but in an entirely new way, and said, "I mean... _you_ are beautiful."

For the third time, she said, "Thank you, Doctor." A lump was forming in her throat, and butterflies seemed to be dancing in her stomach. He held her hands and gazed at her, not speaking. She searched his face. She couldn't believe what she was seeing there.

"Doctor?" she asked softly.

"Yes?"

"Are you ready for lunch?"

"Yes," he told her.

"Okay then. I'm going to need to change. Meet you in the breakfast nook in a few?"

"Okay," he whispered, breaking eye contact. As he moved away from her, his hand held onto hers for as long as possible, before he disappeared behind the door.

She was clever enough to shut the door this time, and she shed the cornflower dress and hung it in the back of the closet, out of sight. She felt that she should be happy about what had just happened, but she wasn't, somehow. It only made her nervous. She supposed it was the uncertainty that was bothering her, and tried to push it down. She knew that if she was going to "do something" about Doctor Clueless before they got stuck in 1969 (God knew when), that she'd have to weather the uncertainty and the possibility of rejection for a while.

It was getting colder, so she threw on a long black skirt over the tights and boots she was already wearing, and pulled a long-sleeved white fitted tee-shirt over her head. She swallowed the lump in her throat and went to the breakfast nook to have lunch with the Doctor.


	2. French Blue

FRENCH BLUE

Suddenly, it was like her bedroom existed on the other side of a dimensional portal or something, because when she arrived at the table, the Doctor's demeanour was completely normal (well, for him, anyway). He seemed to have forgotten the vision of her in the cornflower dress, and the shock he seemed to feel when he saw her. He'd forgotten all about staring wistfully into her eyes, and holding her hands... and she was strangely relieved. Too much too soon could be a bad thing.

They were both famished, and ate like they had just been in a battle with a giant lizard and her spawn. They laughed about the weird little adventure they'd just had, sedating the Yardo Lizard hatchlings (and their dragon of a mother) in order to send them back to their own planet and time through a wormhole. The job had been messier than they had anticipated, and Martha noticed that the Doctor, though he'd taken off his suit jacket, still had some green gooey lizard blood on his blue shirt.

"You will change your shirt before we go anywhere else, won't you?" she asked, as she wiped her hands on her napkin.

"Why?" he asked, inspecting his clothes. "Oh yeah, look at that. Looks like _everything_ goes to the dry cleaner's before too long. Wish we could have done that without having to shoot them with poisoned arrows."

"Better than calling in UNIT to destroy them," Martha said.

"I suppose so." Still chewing his last bite of pizza, he shed the blue shirt, and to Martha's surprise, he had a tan one on underneath it.

"Dressing in layers," she commented. "Very smart."

"Yeah," he said leaning on the table, scratching his eye nervously. "Er, Martha, speaking of dressing..."

_Oh, God, here it comes._

"...I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable before. It was totally inappropriate of me."

"It's all right," she said. "I was flattered."

"I entered without knocking, and then I acted like a stuttering schoolboy, all because of a stupid dress!"

"You didn't act like a schoolboy," she assured him. "And it's fine."

"It's not fine," he said. "I am your friend, and you are not an object. If we're going to travel together, then things like this can't just _happen_."

"Agreed," she told him, though she suspected that she felt that way for a totally different reason than he did.

"You need to be able to trust me," he said. He put his hand on top of hers in a gesture of cameraderie. "I need to act in a way that makes you _want _to trust me. So... won't happen again, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Now... I think we've seen enough alien blood for one day. Let's have a short holiday. Where would you like to go?"

"Don't mind," she told him, drained. She sat back in her chair and defensively crossed her arms over her chest.

"We could go meet someone famous like we did before," he told her, trying to entice her. "We've done Shakespeare... I know! Who's your favourite painter?"

"Erm, VanGogh, I think. I love _Starry Night_."

The Doctor hissed air through his clenched teeth, and said, "Ooh, unstable bloke. He's likely to fall in love with you and lop off a body part to prove it."

"Well, we don't have to..."

"But he did live an interesting life. Born in Holland, died in France, preacher, teacher, salesman, painter. And of course, a complete madman."

"He'd be treated today with Lithium, I expect," Martha commented. "Just lived too soon."

The Doctor looked at her with interest. "You think so? You think he could have been as brilliant as he was if he'd quashed his madness with drugs?"

"Maybe not, but he'd certainly have been a happier guy. Would have lived longer, too."

"Granted, granted. But the art, the beauty he gave to the human race, Martha," the Doctor sighed. "Oh, I don't know if it's worth the trade."

"You might be right, at least from the point of view of _the rest_ of humanity."

"Still, it was a time and place of great creativity. Paris in the 1880s – that's when VanGogh was in his heyday – just chock full of complete nutters with creativity falling out of their ears. If VanGogh hadn't been there, surely the richness of the era would not have been diminished by very much. There still would have been Toulouse-Lautrec (opium-addict), Degas (frustrated pedophile), Whistler (Oedipal complex), and those are just painters! That's not even mentioning the writers and musicians! Oh, that lot is even _more _interesting!"

"Well, if you're so excited about it, why don't we go there?" Martha suggested. "Paris, circa 1880... we'll take in the culture, bask in the insanity and be back in time for supper. Never been to Paris."

"Really? You?"

"Really!" she said with a smile. "Been to Egypt, Istanbul, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Iceland, Brazil and all manner of exotic locations with my family, but they never had any desire to stay in Europe, and the only time I've been to America was with you! Never seen Spain, never been to Germany..."

"But didn't you tell me you speak German? You must have studied."

"Yeah, and French as well, but never traveled to either place," she smiled. "My studying abroad was done in the Congo with Doctors Without Borders when I was in my second year of medical school."

The Doctor smiled. "Doctors Without Borders – that's brilliant. That's us!"

"It kind of is," she said.

"In that case, what are we still doing parked in Bayswater? Care to join me for a Parisian holiday, Martha Jones?"

"My pleasure, Doctor!"

Arm in arm, they headed for the console room. On the way, the Doctor chattered away about the time when he had met DaVinci and had hidden a message in the Mona Lisa. While he talked, he stopped at a closet to withdraw a replacement suit jacket and tie. When they arrived in the console room, he took a few moments to complete his ensemble, and then, once again wrapped in brown pinstripes from shoulder to ankle, he adjusted the screen and began to set coordinates.

"Oh, this is going to be brilliant!" he growled. "The heart of Haussman's Paris! A good bet is Café de la Paix, round 1885 or so. We're bound to rub elbows with _someone_ interesting there."

He did what he does with the TARDIS console, pulled the handbreak loose, and then, more appropriately than ever, exclaimed, "_Allons-y!_"

The jolt of the TARDIS was worse than usual and sent them both tumbling to the floor. The grinding of the gears sounded _off_, and did not have the usual satisfying ring which exhilirated Martha and gave her a sense of adventure. Today, it was more of a gurgling. The vessel jostled its occupants about, and both the Doctor and Martha scrambled to find purchase on handrails or pillars or anything bolted to the floor.

Finally it came to a halt, and Martha found herself slumped against a far wall, and the Doctor was lying sideways underneath the navigator's stool.

"Martha, you okay?" he called out, unsure of where she'd landed.

"Fine," she said, getting to her feet. "Just a bit... shaken."

The Doctor approached the TARDIS console. He looked up into the cyllindrical energy field, and asked, "What's wrong, eh? What happened just now?"

He pulled the screen over, and examined it. "The precision toggle is on the blink," he told Martha. "Won't take a minute to fix. I'll do it on the way out."

"The precision toggle?"

"Yeah," he said. "The coordinates I set through the computer here are rough. I can name a year and a city, most of the time that's all I need. But the precision toggle lets me get to a certain date, time and street, if I want. This time I set it for Boulevard des Capucines, noon on New Year's Day, 1885. It's quite accurate normally, although today... we might've gotten just a bit off course."

"Let's find out," Martha said. She headed for the door, and when she opened it, she was greeted by a penetrating darkness. "Blimey! Have you got a torch?"

The Doctor rooted around below a floor panel for a minute, and emerged with two plastic torches. They each took one and ventured into the darkness.

It was cold, damp and grey, and Martha could hear rats somewhere in the vicinity. The floor was hard and stone, much like the walls, and there seemed to be four options as to which direction they might head.

"Whoa, it's like a labyrinth," Martha said, keeping her voice a bit hushed. "Where the hell are we?"

"I have no idea," the Doctor confessed, looking about in very much the same manner as Martha. "I'll go out on a limb and say underground."

"But which way do we go?"

He looked at her with a bit of incredulity, pointed his torch to the left, the only corridor that seemed to be sloped upwards from where they were standing, and said, "Up. Come on."


	3. Police Blue

POLICE BLUE

He'd been reduced once again to a ghost. For a few brief shining moments, she had made him feel like a man, but today, he wandered – lurked – in the cellars of his Opéra, a shadowy, forgotten figure, masked and one with the dark.

And alone again. Or still? He was never certain. He had never been exactly friendless, but he wasn't the sort of man who could be stayed with – his existence was too complex, his mind too steep for comprehension by most human beings. Most humans would deny his existence, truth be told. And just as well – he had been through things that would turn most of them cold.

_And so, _he tried to tell himself_, what have I really lost? She is gone, she is with someone who can give her what she needs, what I never can. She was never mine to lose, so why wallow? _

But rationality has no place in the realm of love. He could not will himself to let go of her.

And then, an echo in the darkness. Two levels up – he could hear it. An otherworldly grinding, intermingled with a sickly gurgle. He had never heard anything like it in his life – he had absolutely nothing to compare it to. He stopped walking and stood deadly still.

Almost immediately, he could feel something cloying at his mind. An outside force trying to get in, or an inner truth trying to escape? It was in-between, like when he had encountered the mystic shamans in Persia. Mind control, trying to keep the newcomer in check. He had quickly trained himself to shut them out, though it had taken longer to learn how to get in. The Persians used their eyes, intricate carpet weaves, even the vastness of the desert to hypnotise their subjects. He used his voice, the one purely beautiful thing he had ever possessed.

And so he shut out the prying force now. He put a wall between his mind and whatever it was.

After a moment, he heard voices. A man and a woman, speaking in English. A few feet ahead, their dim, orange light could be seen.

"Which way do we go?" asked the woman's voice.

A beat, and then the man answered, "Up."

Relief flooded him. At least these two, they had the sense to go away from here – to go up, away from the darkness. He was too tired to involve himself in yet more hapless explorers who should find themselves trapped in the torture chamber. He was reasonably sure that he did not have the strength, and entirely certain he did not have the mercy.

He knew he should go back to his chamber and stay there, but he did not. He needed to know who these people were, these English who knew the craft of mind exploration as he did – he had never met another European (outside of Romania) who could do what he could do. Perhaps these people posed a threat. What did they intend? He didn't know, and so he followed the sound. What had made that noise? Machinery? An animal? Some combination of the two?

He ran soundlessly up the corridors he knew so well, the labyrinth that he had helped design. He stopped short as something surprised him, seeming to leap in his way. He knew every nook and cranny of this Opéra, and he had never seen this here before. Very few things perplexed him anymore, but this… a blue box, eight feet tall, less than an arm's length wide had simply _appeared _in the depths of the Opéra. Light radiated from within, and the words across the top read, again in English, "Police Public Call Box." It was some sort of device for catching criminals, perhaps.

As he got closer to it, whatever was scratching at his mind grew stronger. He pushed harder.

And when he opened the door of the blue Police box, for the first time, not even the mighty brain of Erik could explain what it was seeing.

* * *

Martha giggled as they crossed the street and were nearly run down by four horses and the cart they were pulling. The driver shouted something at her, just as she stumbled against the Doctor.

"This is brilliant," she cried out. "Paris!"

"You know, you're not happy unless you're being almost hit by something," the Doctor commented, helping set her back on her feet, then offering his arm.

She took it. "Oh you're one to talk!"

The Doctor looked up, back the way they had come. "Oh, of course! The Opéra! I should have known."

The large green and gold building loomed before them majestically at the apex of l'Avenue de l'Opéra, a fledgling boulevard lined with saplings, a darling of the new Haussmann's Paris. The statues of Apollo's Lyre and Pegasus on the roof gleamed in the sunlight before the bright green dome. The place seemed to be buzzing with excitement, men and women in carriages being dropped off, picked up and driven past the place.

"Opera, eh?"

"_Oui oui!_ This is the Palais Garnier Opera house, opened in 1875 and containing five levels of subterranean tunnels which lead to an underground lake which powers hydraulic stage equipment."

"There's a lake under that building?"

"Yep," he said, popping the P. "They started digging the foundation and ran smack into water, a long-buried tributary of the River Seine. So instead of moving the locale, they used it to their advantage."

"How did we wind up down there?"

"I told you," the Doctor replied. "Precision toggle. I was aiming for… well, here, where we're standing right now, Boulevard des Capucines, 1885."

"Well, only a couple hundred yards off," she said. "And how many years, I wonder?"

"Three," the Doctor answered, looking the other way.

"How'd you know that?"

He pointed inside the café to their left. There was a poster, an advert, which read, "Come Celebrate the New Year at Café de la Paix! Only 50 centimes entry. Fancy dress." An image of a baby wore a sash that said 1882, and an old man next to him wore one that said 1881.

"New Year's Eve!" Martha exclaimed. "We dropped in on a party."

"So it would seem. And at Café de la Paix, no less."

"Fancy dress, though?"

"Well, it's a tradition at the Opéra to have a masked ball on New Year's, but most people can't afford that sort of thing… most people can't even get invited to that sort of thing. Only the rich and important. So there are, shall we say, poor-man's fancy dress parties all over town. This is a popular one just by virtue of the fact it's across the street from the Palais Garnier itself."

Martha looked at the Doctor expectantly, like a child. "Doctor?"

He returned the look, only with a mischievous air. "I've got some 19th century centimes in one my junk drawers on the TARDIS." He smiled widely, which always could draw a big smile out of Martha as well.

"Shall we do it?" she asked.

"Oh yes!" he answered.

Excitedly, she turned and walked straight into the café, and the Doctor followed. Martha opened her mouth, and proudly asked, "_Pardonnez-moi monsieur, est-ce que vous pouvez me dire s'il va falloir acheter en avance des billets pour la fête de la nouvelle année?"_

The man behind the counter looked at her blankly for a few seconds. Finally, the man opened his mouth and shouted "Sorry! I don't speak English!"

She looked at the Doctor. "TARDIS translation circuits," he told her.

She was exasperated. "Even when they're speaking a language I understand?"

"It tunes into your native language and interprets the words as… oh, just ask him again in English, will you?"

Martha sighed. "Sir, can you tell me if we will need to pre-pay for tickets to the New Year's celebration tonight?"

"No, miss," the man said. "Not necessary. We'll admit as many people as arrive."

"Isn't that a fire hazard?" she asked.

The Doctor cleared his throat loudly.

"Right," she said, coming back to herself. "Thank you."

"Oh, and miss?" the barman said. "You do mean _tomorrow night_, don't you? Today is the 30th."

"Ah!" she covered. "Of course. My mistake."

"Can I interest you and your gentleman friend in some Absinthe?" he asked, pulling the bottle from a shelf below.

"God, no!"

"Then would you mind clearing the counter space? I'm trying to run a business."

"Right, thank you, sir," the Doctor said, leading Martha away by the shoulders.

As they left the café, Martha tittered, "Oh, I'm so excited! I can't believe I'm going to a fancy dress ball in 19th century Paris! Maybe I'll get to meet Van Gogh after all. Although, how will I know him? I guess I'll just look for the bloke with one ear!"

"Oh, he's still got both ears in 1881, but you'll know him because he looks a bit like a young Kirk Douglas, only ginger," the Doctor said. Looking up and down the street, he rocked back on his heels, and asked, "So, we've got a day and a half in Paris. What would you like to do? It's all about the art at this time in history, Martha. There's no Eiffel Tower yet, Notre Dame Cathedral is in ruins from the revolution, Invalides is still a hospital, Jim Morrison's grave isn't here… what's here is the Louvre, Montmartre's art district, the Comédie Française…"

"Sounds good."

"What does?"

"All of it. Let's see it all!"

* * *

When the Doctor darkened the TARDIS' door that evening, it was without Martha. She had wanted to choose a costume for the fancy dress party tomorrow night, and the Doctor had decided to leave her to it.

Immediately when the Doctor came inside, he could sense something wrong. The TARDIS was agitated, repressed somehow, causing something like a psychic din inside his head. He approached the console and ran his eyes carefully over the controls. They were in the same positions as when he had left them. The screen showed the darkness outside, the cyllinder in the center glowed as usual. But there was an inexplicable unrest – the TARDIS had been tampered with in some way. The Doctor scowled and began to look about.

A tiny detail caught his eye: a shock of black fabric sticking out from between two metal rods that made up the railing around the console area. He knelt, took his glasses from his pocket and inspected it before pulling it from its tight spot. Someone had walked through this area and gotten their clothes caught and torn. He extracted the little piece of fabric and looked at it even closer. Silk, he surmised, of good quality.

"That's odd," he said out loud to himself. That meant someone _wealthy_ had walked through this area and gotten their clothes caught and torn. Based on the locale, someone had ripped their opera cloak inside the TARDIS. He had a feeling it wouldn't work, but he held the sonic screwdriver aloft and used four different settings to scan for transmitters, weapons, alien technology and the like. Nothing.

Whatever was on-board was very good at cloaking its presence, and it had a near-infinite space in which simply to hide. He decided that whoever it was should not know that he was there. He tiptoed outside the vessel and waited in the shadows for Martha. He knew he would scare her to death when she arrived, but it was better than having her bounding into the TARDIS unawares – the being on-board could be malevolent indeed. Most likely they were after _him_ and it was possible they didn't even know about Martha. If that was the case, he'd like to keep it that way.

Sure enough, when she came down the ramp with a tissue paper-covered garment draped over her arm, her torch failed to illuminate him standing beside the TARDIS, and when he met her a few yards away and grabbed her, putting his hand over her mouth, she let out a muffled scream.

"It's me," he whispered in her ear. "It's okay. Please don't shout." He let go.

"What the hell are you doing?" she rasped at him.

"Someone is in the TARDIS," he whispered. "I don't want them to know we're here."

"What? Someone's in there? How do you know?"

"She told me, the TARDIS did," he answered. "I mean, not with words, but…"

"Do you know how to find them?"

"No, it's huge in there. I scanned for all the usual things, but I've got nothing," he said, exasperated. He faced the TARDIS and buried his hands in his hair and pulled. "Thing is, it's not even supposed to be noticed. You only see it if you _know _it's there. That means it's someone looking for me, maybe someone been following us for God knows how long."

"What do we do?"

"We hole up for the night in a secure room and double-lock the doors, set an alarm and try to get some sleep. We'll start scouring the TARDIS in the morning."

"Can't we go stay somewhere else?"

"We can't risk it," he insisted. "What if it's a rogue Time Agent? What if it's a being that feeds on time energy?" He took her hand and motioned for silence, and began pulling her toward the TARDIS door.

She looked at him with worried eyes. She never thought the day would come when she would feel unsafe entering the TARDIS.

He tried to reassure her. "Come on, it's okay. You're with me, right? I won't let anything happen to you, I promise. Trust me?"

"Of course," she said, smiling nervously.

They pushed open the door. He led her across the noisy metal floor slowly, trying not to crinkle the tissue paper or clang their feet on the floor. They tiptoed round three corners and behind a door. He sonicked the door locked, and began punching a code into an elaborate keyboard near the door. Martha assumed he was arming an alarm.

Martha looked up. It was a large room with a high ceiling. Straight ahead, there was a king-sized bed, unmade, one side clearly slept-in, the other side crowded with open books, unrolled maps and gadgets. Over to the right, a sunken mini-living room revealed much the same scenario spread over a small coffee table. Beyond the bed, a wide, curved staircase led up, and her eyes followed the banister to a second floor walled entirely by unkempt, but well-used, bookshelves. A large wardrobe sat near the staircase, the door hanging slightly ajar. She wandered over and looked inside. About 25 blue and brown pin-striped suits hung inside, and on the floor, just as many white and red Converse trainers. A myriad of tan, white and blue dress shirts hung to the right, and on the inside of the door, she counted twelve brown ties and one special Christmas tie with reindeer.

She turned and looked at him, still typing codes into the pad near the door. "This is your bedroom," she said, incredulously.

"Yar," he said distractedly, the sonic screwdriver sideways in his teeth, impeding his speech.

He would be busy for another minute, so Martha took this opportunity to drink it all in. She couldn't help it – her eyes were pulled involuntarily to the bed. She and the Doctor had been forced to share a bed before, but this was different. This was _his _bed, the way _he_ kept it, the way _he_ liked it, where he did all of his most private thinking, enjoyed all of his most unguarded moments. She felt an intimacy with him just from seeing his bed unmade, and she felt an insane, compulsive need to memorise everything about it. A dark red bedspread presided over tan sheets, crinkled from the dream-driven movements of the Doctor's body. A long pillow still dented from the weight of the Doctor's head. A large, cold space covered with books and food for his great brain, a clear reminder that he slept here alone, and had for some time. How many times had she lain so nearby and longed to occupy that space?

"You can hang that in the wardrobe, if you'd like," he told her, taking her by surprise.

"Are you sure?" she asked him, coming to.

"Of course I'm sure," he said. "M_i cámara es su cámara. _I'm just sorry it's such a mess."

"It's all right," she said quietly, making her way to the wardrobe. She hung the tissue-covered costume inside, and admired how it comingled with the Doctor's suits.

When she turned around, he was clearing off the bed, making semi-neat stacks on the credenza near the footboard. She watched, did not interrupt.

When he was finished, he looked at her strangely and said, "Oh, sorry – I didn't even ask. Is this all right, sleeping here next to me?"

She choked. "Yeah," she said, a bit more emphatically than she would have liked. "It's fine. No problem."

"There are some drawers to your right. Maybe there's something in there you can wear."

She opened one of the drawers and found multiple pairs of identical pyjamas in dark blue, or as she had come to think of it, Police Box blue. She extracted one of the tops and held it up to her shoulders. Martha was just over five feet tall, the Doctor just over six. The shirttail hit her an inch above the knee. She stepped behind a wall out of sight, gingerly shed her clothes and underwear, and buttoned up the pyjama top around her. She came out from behind the wall to find the Doctor sitting on the edge of the bed wearing what could have been the bottom half of the pyjama set she was wearing, along with the white tee-shirt he'd had on under his clothes all day. His glasses were on, and he seemed to be researching something.

"What're you reading?" she asked, pulling her hair loose from the spider clip.

Almost without moving his lips, he answered, "I'm researching ways to detect organic presences in large labyrinthine spaces, using only the tools I have on-board," he told her. "I don't want to leave the TARDIS again until we find out who's in here with us."

Suddenly, he shut the book with a loud snap and threw it to the floor beside the bed. He took off his glasses and looked up at her. He paused. She had seen that look before… earlier today when he'd walked in on her wearing the cornflower dress.

Like before, she asked, "What?"

"Er, nothing. It's just that you look a lot better in my pyjamas than I do. You've got nicer legs," he told her with a crooked smile.

She didn't say anything, but was forced to avert her eyes. She walked around to "her" side of the bed, and he watched her as she did. In one swift motion, he had shifted his body into a supine position and lay on his side with his head in one hand. She timidly pulled the sheets back and crawled into bed, trying to be modest about it. She uncomfortably arranged herself so that she was lying on her side, facing him, just like in Dolly Bailey's Inn in Shakespeare's time.

"You're a good sport, Martha," he said. "I hope this is the only night we have to do this."

"Yeah," she whispered, again averting her eyes.

"Are you worried we won't be safe in here?" he asked, sensing some discomfort.

"No, it's not that."

"What is it?"

She sighed. "Good night, Doctor." She settled her head upon the pristine pillow and closed her eyes. _Doctor Clueless_, she thought, from behind sealed eyelids.

The Doctor was puzzled, but he shrugged, extinguished the lights using the sonic, and lay himself down, whispering, "Good night, Martha."


	4. Midnight Blue

**SINCE I HAVE THIS FEELING THAT IT'S MOSTLY DOCTOR WHO FANS READING THIS, I'LL FILL YOU IN ON THE PHANTOM BUSINESS. **

**IN THE UNIVERSE OF THE MUSICAL/FILM/SUSAN KAY'S NOVEL, MUSIC AND SEX ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED. "THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT" SERVES AS A POTENT (PARDON THE PUN) METAPHOR. ERIK (THE PHANTOM) HIMSELF IS BLESSED WITH A STRANGE POWER OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION WIELDED THROUGH HIS EXQUISITE SINGING VOICE. SO, THERE YOU HAVE IT. YOU CAN PROBABLY GUESS WHAT'S COMING (OR WHO). (WOW, I'M IN FINE PUN FORM TODAY!)**

**IF YOU DON'T READ FRENCH, I'VE POSTED THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE SONG LYRICS AS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CHAPTER (AFTER THIS ONE). PERHAPS YOU CAN LOOK AT THEM SIDE-BY-SIDE. AND YES, IT'S AN ORIGINAL SET OF LYRICS - I HOPE YOU ALL APPRECIATE THE TEARS AND TOIL THAT WENT INTO THIS :-).**

* * *

MIDNIGHT BLUE

Fifty years of life had never brought Erik this kind of wonder or delight. Every form of prestidigitation he had ever seen, every act of _léger de main_ had been fully explicable to him, and therefore boring. Even his own trickery was growing stale. His amusement at being called _The Phantom of the Opéra _was part of what caused him to press forward with frightening the tutus off the ballet chorus, no longer the fun of the tricks themselves. It had been diverting enough, until he fell in love. Then it went too far...

But no matter now. He was in a kind of labyrinth he had never seen before. How could such vast spaces, such mazes, such cavernous rooms fit inside the blue box he had seen? It was impossible and wondrous, and as far as he could tell, nothing short of supernatural. Finally, someone had succeeded in deceiving _Erik_ into believing in real magic.

The controls did not interest him much, though he promised himself that if he had the chance, he would come back this way and investigate. What interested him was the spatial paradox. His mind was stretched to its limits just being here (along with trying to keep out that force, cloying at his consciousness), and he decided simply to wander.

A sterile-looking room attracted his attention not far beyond the main room. It was large and brown-tinged, much like the rest of the interior. What looked like a large pewter box stood near a corner, and it was larger than he was! He opened it and found food inside, contained within an artificially cold space. Further on, he found a flat surface with four metal coils. Dials nearby read "low, medium, high," and he surmised that this must be some kind of heating device. Cabinets yielded gadgets he could not identify, though he worked out that most of them were run on electricity. A fruit bowl sat in a wicker basket on the counter, so he took an apple and dropped it in a pocket for later.

He found a room that seemed to contain games – he saw a Mah-Jongg table and an elaborate chess board in mid-play. The block nearby indicated that it was black's turn – he saw an excellent next move for black, and decided to take it. He smiled at his quiet cleverness and moved on. He found a room that seemed to be used for storage, as it was stuffed to the gills with more electrical devices. Eventually, he came upon a bedroom. It was obvious that a woman slept here, as there was jewellery spread out over the vanity. He merely looked inside, he did not linger. This was clearly a private space.

He turned a few corners. He found a sitting room with a fireplace, he found an observatory, a swimming pool, a room filled with nothing but men's clothes, and eventually, another bedroom, this time an enormous room with even a second floor. Again, he did not go inside, merely looked from the doorway. The colours inside and the clothes that he could barely see hanging in the wardrobe suggested that a man slept here. The bed and other surfaces were covered with books and maps, and Erik immediately felt a kindred understanding with this man.

A woman slept in another part of the labyrinth. He had a large bed, but he chose to fill the empty space with knowledge. This arrangement seemed tragic and familiar, and he wondered if the man was like him: clever, strange and detrimentally unique. He closed his eyes and could feel a longing lingering in the air like an aroma, but he knew he might just be projecting his own brokenness into these rooms. For their sakes, he hoped he was wrong. He hoped that this man did not fill his bed with cold intelligence rather than warm flesh because he loved a woman that he could not touch.

He tried to shake this train of thought away. The most interesting, astounding moments of his life were currently ensuing in this impossible space, and yet the most anguished moments of his life were still at the forefront of his mind. Hard as he tried, Christine would not leave him. Funny that. Six months ago, hard as he tried, she would not stay.

His wandering led him further and further into his own curiosity, and further and further into this amazing place. At some point, he realised that he had wandered in so far that he would never find his way out again, but he did not concern himself. Only the journey seemed to matter now. He only amusedly hoped that there was no trap door set, waiting to ensnare him in some sort of torture chamber.

So engrossed was he, that hours later, he almost failed to hear the voice. As far as he could tell, the man said only "That's odd," and then nothing else. His silence caused Erik to suspect that he knew someone was in his lair, just as Erik always did when people wandered too far down into the bowels of the Opéra. Then the man seemed to leave again. Erik heard nothing more until two muffled voices came from the depths of the labyrinth. His sense of direction was normally excellent, but today, in this place, it was quite shaky. Nevertheless, he thought he could tell that the voices were coming from the direction of the man's bedroom. They were not saying much, but the fact that they were together was enough.

Erik secreted himself in the nearest room, where he figured he would stay the night. He did not believe in God, but if he had, he would have prayed for these two people, now sharing the vast space with him. But he didn't need God or prayer. He had always comforted himself and others with song.

The room he was in was semi-illuminated, and he could see a crimson velvet fainting couch – he would sleep there. He also saw another unidentifiable apparatus hanging from the wall, something he was now used to seeing as a result of the day's adventure. This thing would have looked like a painting in a frame, except that it was blank and grey. He wondered if somehow images might appear on the surface by way of electricity or other "magic."

He shed his opera cloak and his waistcoat and laid them aside. He stood quite still and waited until he was certain that the voices had stopped. Then he gave himself one hour's meditation. Once he was relaxed, he conjured a song from the corners of his mind. It was a song he had written for Christine, in his mind a masterpiece, but it had caused her to faint when she heard it. So shrouded was he with love and fantasy, he thought of it as a piece to which he had given birth, rather than written.

He sang. It was a cloudy, warm reverie born in the night...

_En nuit je m'enveloppe en me sentant, en me souvenant,_

_Je respire l'odeur et tu es dans l'air, en t'attardant._

_Ton essence me remplit le corps, es-tu remplie de moi ?_

_Je sais que ce n'est qu'une fantaisie mais ça ne m'empêche pas…_

_J'étends mes bras, tu y réponds d'un baiser,_

_Et puis tu réponds de ton toi, ton être entier._

_Maintenant c'est décidé, je suis à toi, tu es la mienne,_

_Exactement comme en noir deux amants s'appartiennent._

_Emballé, je m'en vais, je tombe au-delà du seuil,_

_Tu me remues, et puis tu m'accueilles._

_Quand même je deviens solide et tu deviens liquide,_

_Nos êtres sont en harmonie, saisissants et intrépides._

_Notre ouverture grandit, se joue, commence l'opéra magique !_

_Je suis les paroles, mon amour, et tu es la musique,_

_Soudain tu m'entoures de chaleur, tu me contiens,_

_Nos mouvements font une chœur, chantant envers le même refrain._

_Les cordes brouillent notre chanson en beauté, en démence_

_Et leur rythme nous apporte en avance, en avance…_

_En cordes lisses, une basse nous impose son impatience,_

_Alors, la musique, et les paroles dedans, suivent sa guidance._

_Et un mélange parfait d'un mot ouvert et une note pendue, il vient._

_Ensemble ils versent et répandent dans l'air des violons peint._

_L'amour orchestral nous possède, nous en somme une partie._

_L'opéra est neuve, mon amour, les cordes nous supplient._

And when the song was finished, he repeated it. Then, Erik lay down on the crimson couch and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The sound did not wake Martha so much as it extracted her from sleep. The painful tones brought her round, until she found herself, quite involuntarily, sitting up in bed straining to hear. A song, exquisite, anguished, hypnotic, was sounding inside her head. The words were in French, but she understood them – a love song… sensual, dreamlike and yearning.

Something stirred beside her, and she turned her head. Her bedmate sat up and looked at her with a quizzical expression she had seen hundreds of times. "Listen," he whispered, and then his face morphed into an expression she had never seen. Their eyes locked as the song dissipated, and they stared into one another with amazement and some kind of… intoxication.

And then the song began again. The same pure tones emerged through the darkness, the same tactile, sensuous words…

_En nuit je m'enveloppe en me sentant, en me souvenant,_

_Je respire l'odeur et tu es dans l'air, en t'attardant._

_Ton essence me remplit le corps, es-tu remplie de moi ?_

_Je sais que ce n'est qu'une fantaisie mais ça ne m'empêche pas…_

Her eyes did not move from the Doctor's, nor did his move from hers. Their souls seemed to look askance at each other. _Es-tu rempli de moi? Are you filled with my essence? Ce n'est qu'une fantaisie... it's only a fantasy._

_J'étends mes bras, tu y réponds d'un baiser_

_Et puis tu réponds de ton toi, ton être entier._

He reached out tentatively toward her lovely face, as though to touch her jaw with his palm. She caught his hand and kissed it, first the palm, then across the wrist and down his arm. Desire was stirring in both of them, and the next time their eyes met, so did their lips. A full-bodied kiss gave way, and as his tongue probed her mouth, she pushed her body closer, against him, and clung with her arms, and her whole being. He pushed her gently back until her head was resting on the pillow and the length of his body was resting upon her. In the fog of confusion and love and music, they were lost to one another, floating in the smoke of a different consciousness, a whole new world.

_Maintenant c'est décidé, je suis à toi, tu es la mienne,_

_Exactement comme en noir deux amants s'appartiennent._

A blip of sanity crossed the Doctor's mind, and a shadow of reality shone in his eyes as he pulled reluctantly away from Martha's embrace.

_Emballé, je m'en vais, je tombe au-delà du seuil…_

"Martha," he panted. "I can't stop."

_Tu me remues, et puis tu m'accueilles._

"I don't want you to stop," she whispered, and all reason forgotten, he buried his mouth in the crook of her neck, eliciting a symphonic groan from her. Into the night, she whispered again, "No, please don't stop." Then she tugged at his t-shirt and helped him wrestle himself out of it without pulling away from her for too long.

_Quand même je deviens solide et tu deviens liquide…_

He shifted his weight, and for the first time, she felt a certain hardness pressing against her thigh. The feel of it made her melt with desire. She knew she was growing molten at her centre.

_Nos êtres sont en harmonie, saisissants et intrépides._

She felt hungry for something, she wanted to consume, and she could tell that he felt the same way. He unbuttoned the blue pyjama top that she was wearing, nearly ripping the buttons off in the process. His mouth traversed her shoulders, breasts, neck and lips, searching for something, and his body was grinding into hers, probing, needing. At last, he manoeuvred himself between her legs. Supporting himself on his hands, he looked down at her with lucidity, and a seriousness he normally reserved for planets in peril. She pushed his pyjama bottoms down over his erection, and with her eyes, gave him approval.

_Notre ouverture grandit, se joue, commence l'opéra magique._

_Je suis les paroles, mon amour, et tu es la musique,_

_Soudain tu m'entoures de chaleur, tu me contiens…_

The suspense threatened to break her in two, and now the wait was over. He pushed inside her with one liquid motion, answered by a moan from each.

_Nos mouvements font une chœur, chantant envers le même refrain._

His lips pressed against hers once again, and his tongue probed her mouth as though he wanted to be completely entrenched in her. He moved inside her with force, all gentle overtures having been left behind, and reflecting the same urgency that she felt. Her body glowed with the pleasure of it, his perfect thrusts, his seeming ability to read her mind and listen to her body.

_Les cordes brouillent notre chanson en beauté, en démence_

The fog that surrounded them in the form of song was palpable now. It filled their senses and made them insatiable and unhinged.

_Et leur rythme nous apporte en avance, en avance…_

It spurred them on, and Martha could feel herself advancing closer and closer to the brink, and she felt the Doctor's body moving with ever greater urgency.

_En cordes lisses, une basse nous impose son impatience,_

Suddenly, it was here, a force boiled up from deep inside and told them _it's time._ He looked at her starkly again, and she saw in his eyes the same unhinged need that was boiling up inside her. If she hadn't known better, she'd have mistaken the expression for anger.

"Martha," he hissed, and she reveled in the sound of her name on his lips, pushed out from a place of pure lust. "I still can't stop. The time is now…"

_Alors, la musique, et les paroles dedans, suivent sa guidance._

"Yes," she told him, replicating his throaty whisper. "Let it take you, Doctor. Bring me with you."

_Et un mélange parfait d'un mot ouvert et une note pendue, il vient._

And then they were taken together. In a perfect, exquisite moment, they came together with interlocking moans…

_Ensemble ils versent et répandent dans l'air des violons peint._

… and each one relished the feeling of the other spasming, flooding, giving in to the music in the air.

_L'amour orchestral nous possède, nous en somme une partie._

_L'opéra est neuve, mon amour, les cordes nous supplient._

And as they recovered, the Doctor looking down upon her with shock in his eyes, Martha looking back with unabashed love, they knew they were not finished. They knew in that moment that their relationship had changed, their lives had changed. And they knew that they must be taken again…

The Doctor leaned in once more and kissed Martha with a combustible craving, and their song recommenced in due time. Each noticed in their turn, just barely, that the singing had stopped, but their opera was just beginning.


	5. ENGLISH VERSION OF SONG

In the night I am enveloped, feeling, remembering,

I breathe in the scent and you are in the air, lingering.

Your essence fills my body, are you filled with me ?

I know it's only a fantasy, but that doesn't prevent me…

I reach out with my arms, you answer with a kiss

And then you answer with your self, your entire being.

Now it's decided, I'm yours, you are mine,

Exactly as lovers belong to one another in the dark.

Wrapped, I go on, I fall beyond the threshold,

You stir me, and then you welcome me.

Even though I'm becoming solid and you're becoming liquid,

Our beings are in harmony, grasping and fearless.

Our overture swells, is played out, the magical opera begins!

I am the lyrics, my love, you are the music,

Suddenly you're surrounding me with warmth, you contain me.

Our movements make a chorus, singing toward the same refrain.

The strings fog our song in beauty, in madness

And their rhythm brings us forward, forward…

Amid smooth strings, a bass imposes upon us its impatience,

So, the music, and the lyrics inside, follow its guidance.

And a perfect blend of open words and a hanging note, it comes.

Together they spill and spread in the violin-painted air.

Orchestral love possesses us, we are part of it.

The opera is brand-new, my love, the strings are pleading with us.


	6. Light Blue

LIGHT BLUE

When Martha woke this time, it was to the sound of the sonic screwdriver. She gurgled some protest, then came to her senses and realised where she was. She was lying curled up on top of the Doctor's pyjama top.

_Shit._

She propped herself up on her elbows behind her, careful not to let the blankets slide lower than they should.

"Morning," she said.

"Ma-yah," the Doctor replied, sonic once again sideways in his teeth, impeding his speech. "Da mee wakya."

She assumed he was trying to say "Didn't mean to wake you," and responded with a wave of her hand and a vague groan of "'Sokay."

He was sitting on his side of the bed with his legs crossed yoga-style, dressed in the last clothes she'd seen on him: a white tee shirt and blue pyjama bottoms. His glasses were on, and he was engrossed in a funny-looking device that seemed to be made of a metal funnel, some tubing and a little black box that let out soft blips every now and then.

She stared at the bedspread for a few moments, trying to get her bearings. Then, "I feel like I've got a hangover," she said.

He peered over his glasses at her and took the sonic out of his mouth. "Er, okay. That's a new one. Are you going to be sick? Please say no."

"No," she said, sitting up straight.

"Thank goodness. My ego can only take so much," he said.

She looked at him and frowned, but he did not see it.

A pause while he adjusted some bolts on the device. Then he asked, "So, what? Headache? Sensitivity to light?"

"No, mostly just a feeling of having been run over by a bus," she said. She scanned her mind for all the things she ate and drank before going to sleep last night. Crêpes, fruit juice, some wine... she was fairly certain she'd turned down that offer of Absinthe. They had been on the run a lot lately, perhaps it was a simple Vitamin B deficiency...

_Right. Vitamin B._

"Mmm," the Doctor said, non-committally. He stole little glances at her over his glasses as he worked.

"What's that?" she asked.

He drew in a deep, quick breath. "This," he said. "This is that thing I was reading about last night. I've built a device for detecting organic presences in large labyrinthine spaces out of only what I had on board. I'nit beautiful?" He smiled at her broadly.

"Yeah," she smiled. "How long have you been awake?"

"Oh, just an hour or so," he answered.

She looked at the clock. It kept local time wherever they were. It told her that it was only about five hours since she'd fallen asleep after...

"An hour? You've only had four hours' rest?" she laughed. "I don't know how you do it."

"Well," he said, still tweaking the device. "I slept _really _well." He allowed himself to look at her then, and smile just slightly. "Also, I woke with a revelation about our new friend."

"Our new friend?"

"Yeah, whoever is in the TARDIS with us," he said. "I realised he must be a he, right?"

"Erm, yeah, it sounded like... a man..." she trailed off shyly.

"And he's got to have some kind of brain-block."

"Brain-block?"

"Yes," he said. "He knows how to prevent probing sources from entering his mind. In _Harry Potter_ they call it Occlumency."

"Okay, I'm with you. But how do you know that?"

"Because of the song he sang," the Doctor shifted and cleared his throat uncomfortably. "What language did you hear?"

This forced the song back into her head momentarily, and forced her body to flush once again with pleasure. "French," she said, suddenly shutting it all way. "It was definitely French."

The Doctor tipped one eyebrow at her.

"Oh!" she cried out. "The TARDIS translation circuits weren't able to get into his mind! If they had, I'd have heard the song in English!"

"_Molto bene,_" he told her. "And! One last thing: he's learned, probably as an extension of his brain-block skills, to do the opposite. He can get into _our_ minds."

Martha shivered. She knew first-hand that the Doctor wasn't talking about mind-reading.

"He's got some kind of..." the Doctor searched for the words. "Hypnotic capacity for suggestion. And it's powerful. I've never experienced anything that powerful... not from a human..." he trailed off.

Martha trained her gaze on him, but said nothing. She didn't know what to say.

"Anyway," the Doctor continued. "The only place on Earth where he could have learned something that powerful is in Persia, in the court of the Shah. The timing is about right – the Shah's court was at its mystic heyday, oh, about twenty to thirty years ago, and even then, he'd have to be a bloody prodigy.

"We also know that this man is attracted to labyrinthine spaces. He came from under the Opéra into the TARDIS and he's been able to conceal himself in both places – even from the TARDIS itself. All of that, plus the extraordinary musical ability..."

"What?" Martha asked, urgently.

"Well, I always thought he was a myth."

"Who?"

"The Phantom," he said, now staring beyond her.

"Excuse me?"

"Stories float round this building, this Opéra," he told her. "They began with the laying of the foundation of this place, and persist well into your time. First they said the theatre was haunted, then some claimed that a mad genius lived in the cellars, a musical prodigy capable of killing with a single stroke of a whip, controlling you with his mind, singing you into submission. And, later it was said that he had a Persian confidant who eventually told his story to the press. Most people didn't believe his story..."

"Oh lovely, and now he's here with us."

"Well, as mind-control goes..." the Doctor began, but didn't finish that thought. "I just mean, he doesn't seem to want to _hurt _us."

Martha sighed. _Maybe not you, but I think he might have done me some damage._

And then all was interrupted once again by music. This time, a piano. Martha and the Doctor looked at each other briefly, then both dashed out of bed. Martha climbed into the first garments she could find, which happened to be a light blue dress shirt and a pair of soft slippers. She followed the Doctor out the door and ran after him.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The music room!" he answered, shouting.

"You have a music room? A gift from Beethoven?"

He didn't answer, he just kept running. He was in pyjamas and a tee-shirt and barefoot and she was in nothing but a large shirt slippers that were twice the size of her feet. It was an interesting sight – a slight variation on their usual adventure.

Twists and turns down tan marbled hallways, the slippery floor causing more consternation that either one of them would have liked, corridors Martha had never seen, and a few that the Doctor had not seen in several centuries... and behind all that, a music room. They opened the door carefully and found a darkened space. He sonicked the lights on, and they shone purple. Martha and the Doctor looked around.

A large pipe organ loomed against a far wall, and in the middle of the room, a piano. Space enough for a full orchestra spread out to their right, including the chairs and instruments set in the proper order. A flat screen television for feeding musical notation was on their left.

"He's not here now," she said. "Where would he have gone next?"

He took her hand and motioned for her to stay quiet. They tiptoed through the orchestra area, and then stopped, and then the Doctor stopped. He looked hard at the chairs, and then at her. His gaze was penetrating enough to make her ask, "What are you staring at?"

He didn't say anything for a long moment. "He led us here," he whispered.

"What, like a trap?" Martha asked nervously, squeezing his hand tighter and moving a bit closer to him.

"No," he said. "Think, Martha. Think about that song."

She closed her eyes and let it in. The swell gave her a such a shudder, she had to push it away again. "I can't, Doctor," she told him, swallowing hard and feeling that residual desire rippling through her as she looked up at him.

"In the song, the orchestra represents..." the Doctor said, still holding her gaze.

She was too choked to complete the sentence. Besides, if she thought about it too hard, she'd swoon. She knew that he was invoking the song in his mind, but he was stronger than she was... she knew it would not affect him now the way it did her. One of them had to stay sane.

But she allowed him to look into her once again, and before long, his hands were around her waist, pulling her close. She turned up her lips, he turned his down, and they both closed their eyes in readiness...

And something pulled them away once again. Behind the orchestra area, maroon curtains, dyed purple by the light, hung grandly. A sound came from that direction, a voice...

"Come on," he whispered.

Bitterly disappointed, Martha followed him into the curtained area. It was a small circular room, surrounded with the same red curtains. A small table was in the middle, and on it, there was a little card. The Doctor picked it up.

"The orchestra plays on always," he read. "The _duetto_ is what makes the overture worth listening to. Let the opera continue!"

Voice trembling, "He definitely does not want to hurt us," Martha said.

"I should say not," the Doctor agreed, now letting go of Martha's hand. Such a small gesture, but it hurt her. She took a dejected step back from him. "He's trying to bring us together."

A song played out from somewhere else in the TARDIS. It was a Gabrielle CD blaring from one of the entertainment rooms, the song _Should I Stay?_ The Doctor growled with frustration and ran down the halls once more. They checked three different entertainment rooms, each chock full of gadgets, holographic televisions, DVD players, mini-disc projectors, circular sport broadcast. In the third one, they found where the CD was coming from, but they did not find the intruder.

Another note was folded on the coffee table, and Martha grabbed it. She read, "Here I am, waiting for a sign. I never seem to know if you want me in your life. Where do I stand? I just don't know – I never feel I know you because you blow hot..."

"...and you blow cold," the Doctor finished.

Martha chuckled. She'd heard that song before but never realised how well it applied to her.

A huge whooshing sound came from the distance. It's as though someone had opened the door to the Arctic and they were hearing the wind and snow blow cold.

"Blimey, he's in the Arctic room! Come on!"

"The Arctic room? What the hell is that for?" Martha called out as she ran after him once again.

"For? It's not _for_ anything. It has an echo and some snow!" he called back.

He heaved open the door, and when he did, the voice of "the Phantom" came tumbling out. "_L'amour orchestral nous possède, nous en sommes une partie. L'opéra est neuve, mon amour, les cordes nous supplient," _it sang, just as it had last night.

The Doctor slammed the door shut, his teeth bared, his breath coming in quick wisps. "He's worked out how to use the Arctic echo," he hissed. "Ooh, this bloke is _clever_."

"Are you sure he's not in there?" Martha asked, pointing toward the heavy Arctic door.

"Oh, I'm sure," he answered. He took three steps out into the middle of the hall. He shouted angrily, "Enough! Enough with the wild goose chase! I know what you're trying to do and it won't work, do you hear me? IT WON'T WORK! Do you know who you're dealing with? I am a _spectacularly _broken man! I have no love left to give – it's all been taken from me, so GIVE IT UP!"

By the end, he was screaming, and it left him panting. The wind seemed to be knocked out of Martha. She put her hand to her chest and supported herself against the wall. She choked on a sob, and suddenly felt smaller than she had in quite a while.

The Doctor, for his part, paced, oblivious to what his words had done to her. She languished on her own, just has she had for nine months. Could he really think that she was in the same frame of mind as he was? She supposed he could – he had been thinking that all along. Why would she think that sex under hypnosis would change that?

Except...

And then, as expected, they heard another sound. It was the sound of Martha's favourite music box being amplified over the TARDIS' tannoy.

"He's in my room!" she cried out, suddenly snapped from her stupor.

They ran again. When they reached Martha's bedroom, of course, they did not find the intruder. However, a beautiful royal blue silk gown hung from the jamb of her closet door. The bodice and off-shoulder sleeves were trimmed in black lace, and the skirt featured a long hem of silk painted to look like peacock feathers. At the neckline hung a mask adorned with the real feathers.

They both stared at it as though they couldn't identify it. But Martha knew – it was the costume she had chosen for tonight's celebration at Café de la Paix.

"It's so creepy that he was _here,_" Martha said, taking the dress down. She concealed it in her closet, suddenly ashamed of it. The Doctor didn't want to be drawn into her, so why should she even bother wearing this thing now?

"It means he was in my room, too. That costume was hanging in my wardrobe." He paused, in thought. "Martha, put it on."

"What?"

"Put on the costume," he told her. "We're going to that party."

"What, now?"

"Yep."

She took the dress from the closet and looked at the Doctor expectantly. He understood, and then turned his back so she could change.


	7. Green Blue

GREEN BLUE

Martha timidly began to unbutton the Doctor's blue dress shirt, which hung from her body like a smock. "You know, you could go back to your own room to change," she suggested uncomfortably.

"I'm not leaving you alone," he said. "We know what this man is capable of – I don't know how he'd use his _talent_ if he got you on your own."

"Okay," she said, stalling. She made a slow production of stepping out of the large slippers.

The Doctor fidgeted. "Are you ready yet?" he asked.

She looked at him with surprise. "Er, no," she said. "It's going to be a while. Do you know how elaborate dresses are at this point in history?"

He turned on a lark and caught her pretty well unbuttoned. Her hands were in the middle of undoing the second-to-last button, so he had a clear view from her collar bone down the centre of her body to her navel. A lump formed in his throat.

And then the worst happened. The Doctor cursed.

The voice wafted about the room, that hypnotic, suggestive voice that had driven them into each others' arms and further. "_J'étends mes bras, tu y réponds d'un baiser, et puis tu réponds de ton toi, ton être entier." _They each took two steps forward which put them squarely body-to-body, and in a few split seconds, mouth-to-mouth. Their lips clung desperately to each other, and their arms snaked around sneakily. Martha's lips moved down his jawline, planting kisses all the way down his long neck. She relished the ready accessibility, adorned today in a tee-shirt instead of the usual starched collar and tie.

But though the Doctor's body was slowly igniting, his eyes were darting all about the room, planning an attack, an escape, anything... and then he noticed.

"Martha," he said, gulping. "The voice is coming from the music box."

"What?" she asked, not stopping her voracious ministrations.

"Blimey, he's a ventriloquist as well," the Doctor said, more to himself than anyone. "That explains..."

But then their lips caught again and their hands went back to exploring.

"_Maintenant c'est décidé, je suis à toi, tu es la mienne exactement comme en noir deux amants s'appartiennent."_

Amid the blast of heat, Martha jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He turned so that her back was to the bed and fell upon bit, catching himself on his hands. He didn't have far to go to undress her: two buttons came undone and she was his for the taking.

Her hands went to his waist band readying to push his pyjama bottoms down, but even as she did this, she gasped, "Doctor, help me fight this!" With a great amount of effort, she resisted pushing further.

"_Emballé, je m'en vais, je tombe au-delà du seuil."_

He buried his mouth between her breasts, and asked, "Mmm?"

"This is wrong!" she said, panting, not pushing him away. "Tell me how to keep him out of my mind!"

He pushed up on his hands again and looked down at her. "You're right," he said, eyes wide with something that looked like fear. "We have to block it!"

"_Tu me remues, et puis tu m'accueilles.__"_

She looked back with the same fear, and said gasped, "I don't know how! Help me!"

"_Quand même je deviens solide et tu deviens liquide." _With this, their tentative resolve crumbled for a few seconds and they fell back into each other, sucking, clinging. Untangling at this point would be difficult – he was definitely hard now, and she was melting. "_Nos êtres sont en harmonie, saisissants et intrépides."_

"_Notre ouverture grandit, se joue, commence l'opéra magique !"_

She pushed at his shoulders. "D'teuh! Stpppp!" she insisted, muffled by his avid lips.

He understood her plea as "Doctor, stop!" and he tore himself away. "Oh no!" he panted. "It's starting! Martha, think of something else ! Think of something that will make you want to stop, something disgusting or something pure…"

"_Je suis les paroles, mon amour, et tu es la musique, soudain tu m'entoures de chaleur, tu me contiens," _ the voice told them.

Taken almost wholly by the music, his brain dangerously overridden, he pushed at his waistband and placed the head of his member at her entrance. Both of them were breathing heavily in tandem now, and staring powerfully into each others' eyes. Would he push inside, or could he resist? Could she?

"I'm trying, Doctor, but I want you so much…" she was almost crying now, and she shut her eyes tight. "I don't know if there's anything that will make me not want it!"

"There's always something, Martha," he assured her, still rasping, still intense and still unable to take his body away from contact with hers. He knew how she felt. He wanted it too, and all it would take was one good push forward, and he could be buried in her, he could have her liquid heat wrapped around him…

But that meant they would always be slaves to it. The more often this happened, the lower their resolve would slide. This man could keep them rutting like bunnies indefinitely if they didn't fight it now.

For her part, she knew that one nudge of her heel against his bum, one pull of his hip, one throaty plea of "take me" and she could feel him driving into her, moaning her name, desperate and

needing her…

But this was _the Doctor_. He was not, could not be, just a shag to her. She loved him with every fibre of her being, and she didn't want this if she couldn't have all of him. She'd rather languish in silence as always. It was clear that the hypnotic suggestion was not changing is _feelings,_ only his desires, therefore, they would be better off if they could push the song out of their heads now.

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

"_Nos mouvements font une chœur, chantant envers le même refrain."_

"No, no movements," he muttered to himself in response to the singing. "No chorus... no refrain..."

Martha moaned beneath him. "Doctor," she panted. "Doctor!"

That alone nearly caused him to crumble. "Shhhh," he lulled. "Martha... don't talk, you'll weaken."

"_Les cordes brouillent notre chanson en beauté, en démence, et leur rythme nous apporte en avance, en avance…"_

She seemed lost in something now, her head moving side to side. "No," she sighed. "No madness... no rhythm…"

"Not forward..." he added. "Good, Martha, keep doing that."

The song continued with its sensual lyric, its climax came and went, complete with its promise to ensnare them again. They stayed poised as they were, fighting its insidious power. When the singing stopped, the Doctor and Martha opened their eyes and looked at each other. They had withstood this test.

"Last time he sang it twice," Martha croaked out in a high pitch.

"Right," he said, and he pushed up and off of her. Facing away, he tucked himself back into his pyjamas, and she buttoned his shirt back up around her, then cast about for some knickers or a skirt or _anything._

"Are you decent?" he asked.

She pulled on a pair of white gym shorts and tied the drawstring in the front. "Yes."

"What finally did it?" he asked her.

"Erm," she said, trying to think up a lie. "I thought about my brother. You know... family and sex don't mix."

"Good, good," he said, nodding. "Me too. I mean, I didn't think of your brother, but family..."

"Right," she said. After a pause, she said, "You're as rotten a liar as I am."

"Nine hundred years, you think I'd learn how to tell a little white lie."

"It's okay," she told him. "You're a good bloke, Doctor."

"So what was it really?" he asked.

She hesitated, then exhaled heavily. She sat down sadly on the edge of the bed, and confessed softly, "I thought of you, standing in the corridor ten minutes ago, shouting about how it wasn't going to work because you have no more love to give."

He looked at the floor. He moved slowly toward the edge of the bed and sat down next to her. "Oh, I'm sorry, Martha," he said. "But I understand. It wouldn't be very fulfilling to have that happening to us time after time if we're not in love."

She examined his face. He was serious. No sign of covering or poignancy, just his usual obliviousness. She shook her head and chuckled bitterly. "No, I guess _we're _not."

Three full seconds, and then the Doctor looked at her with realisation, for the first time. She looked back with tears in her eyes, acknowledging the thing she'd felt for nine months. His eyes were apologetic and sad, but he didn't say anything for a long time.

The suspense was killing her, but _he _was going to have to be the one to speak first. She had already said too much.

Staring at the floor, he finally managed, "You are _beautiful, _Martha. Beautiful. And brilliant. And every day, I think that your beauty has finally outshined your brilliance, and then you prove me wrong... until the next time you, say, try on a blue dress."

"You don't have to do this."

"Listen. You know, that day on the moon, there had to have been at least a hundred_ brilliant _young doctors and nurses and med students in that hospital. Many of them would have made a good companion for me, even the men. But I chose you, Martha."

"Yes, you did."

"I chose you because when you bent down to take my heartbeat, my hearts sped up, did you notice? I was charmed by you, entranced. And... turned on," he confessed, with one eyebrow raised.

"What?" she inquired, shocked.

He sighed. "In very many ways, Martha, I am not like other men. But a beautiful woman... well, then, we're all alike, I'm afraid. And it doesn't take a satin gown or pyjamas or hypnosis."

"What does it take?"

"Nothing. Just your being you. Last night, for the majority of our, erm, _time together_, there was no singing – there was just us, lost in each other. I found that I wanted you even when there was no outside force wheedling its way into my consciousness. No song – just you."

Tears were falling now. "I wanted you too," she told him. "Even after..."

He smiled. "And it was beautiful, wasn't it? It felt good to let go, just to be together and let our guard down. I mean, it felt good in that other way as well, but it's what it _meant_ that was more important."

She looked at him with supplication and desperation in her eyes, and then asked, "Then why, _why_ would you say you have no more love to give? Doctor, why are we not in love?"

He sighed heavily. "Do you want to know what I was thinking about just now, that allowed me to keep out the voice?"

"I don't know if I do. But tell me."

"I think you already know."

"Rose."

He nodded. "I pictured her watching me with you. I imagined the jealousy she'd feel, the anger, like I was being unfaithful."

"Lovely."

"Martha, until right now, I thought that my travels with you had absolutely nothing to do with her. I was drawn to you, but she was the love of my life – I don't know if you can understand that."

Fresh tears fell. "Oh, I can," she said.

This squeezed his hearts just a little bit further. But he continued, now crying a bit himself. "I loved her. I really, really loved her, and the fact that I never told her made it all the worse when she was taken from me. When I lost her... oh Martha, I thought I'd never be whole again. I thought I'd never travel with a human again. And then I found you, and you stirred something in me, but... it felt wrong. It felt empty. It felt like _rebound_, like you said, just lusty and... empty."

Martha nodded with heartbroken acceptance. Right now, she hated Rose. But she loved the Doctor, and she knew he needed comfort. So she swallowed her bitterness. "What do you think she's doing right now?"

He smiled sadly. "I don't know. Sometimes I wonder what she's doing now, who she's talking to, if she still thinks of me. It lessens every day, but it still can drive me mad, the wondering."

"I'm sure she does think of you, Doctor. How could she not?"

"She has Mickey," the Doctor said. "The boyfriend she had before we met, and I assume – I hope – they are together now that I'm out of her life. Mickey is good for her – clever and brave. Sometimes my thoughts run to him, and I will him to take care of her, lessen her pain, maybe."

"He loves her?"

"He does, I know he does. He can't give her everything, but I know he'll do his best."

"I think he will," Martha said, taking the Doctor's hand. "If he knows you, he knows what a thing Rose has lost – he'll want to take her pain away. I'm sure he'd do everything to make her feel a little bit better each day. She's in a good place, Doctor, with people who care. I don't think you need to worry."

The Doctor was moved. It was the first time he and Martha had really discussed Rose, and now knowing what he knew, it was an emotional moment. "Thank you, Martha," he choked.

They hugged, and the tension dissipated slowly and their friendship was on its way back to repair.

But what the Doctor could not feel was the slow burn in Martha's guts, the churning nausea eking its way in... the breaking of her heart. Talking of Rose this way was draining her spirit, and it was all she could do no to collapse in tears.

The Doctor stood up and crossed the room. He stood in the doorway and stared down the hall. "So, are you up for another foray into the labyrinth to track down our friend?"

"I suppose," she said, getting to her feet.

"Good," he said. He slammed his palm against a knot in the wall, one that Martha had never noticed. This opened a panel on the other side of the room, and out fell a man.

He was wearing a black silk opera cloak.


	8. Royal Blue

**HERE IT IS: THE GREAT CONFRONTATION SCENE. I'M AFRAID IT LEAVES SOMETHING TO BE DESIRED. IN MY DEFENSE, TWO OF THE GREATEST MINDS OF FICTION ARE COMING TO A HEAD HERE, AND I AM NOWHERE NEAR AS CLEVER AS EITHER ONE OF THEM! I'VE WORKED ON THIS AND WORKED ON THIS... AND THIS IS MY PRODUCT. PLEASE ENJOY!**

* * *

ROYAL BLUE

"Hello," the Doctor said as the stranger worked to get himself to his feet. "Welcome to the TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space. It is my travel vessel. Labyrinthine, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. And now that we've got that out of the way, who the hell are you and what are you doing on my ship?"

"You know the answer to both of those questions, Doctor," the cloaked man said, in nearly-perfect English. Only a tinge of a French accent came through.

"Well now, that's an unfair advantage. Since you've been skulking about in my home, you know my name. If we're going to be shipmates, I think I ought to know yours, don't you?"

"I do not know your name, only your title."

Martha chimed in. "I thought that too, but his name is the Doctor – that's all anyone ever calls him."

"In that case," the stranger said, bowing properly. "My name is Erik. I apologise for not introducing myself sooner, but I am not normally one for forward interactions."

"I can see that," the Doctor said. "Why the mask?"

"You couldn't handle the truth of this, Doctor."

"Oh, why don't you try me? You have brought out some rather interesting truths from us, the least we can do is return the favour."

"I never remove my mask."

The Doctor grew deadly serious once more. "I never negotiate with a man whom I cannot look in the eyes. And when I stop negotiating, people tend to wind up exiled in mirrors and collapsed in dwarf stars."

Erik scoffed. "Threats do not work on me, Doctor. And I'm afraid that I am not the only one in this room who is masked at the moment."

"All right, enough with the head games. I'm really bloody sick of having you in here," the Doctor spat, pointing to his head. "Just tell me what you're doing here."

"I could ask the same question of you. I would never have wandered into your _TARDIS_ if it had not suddenly appeared in the cellars of my Opéra. I was merely investigating what I perceived as an encroachment upon my territory. Much as you are doing now. So I believe that puts us at an impasse."

"Wrong. You didn't just wander around in my home, you trespassed in our brains."

Erik's face seemed to change beneath the mask. The Doctor interpreted it as a smirk. "Your brains were closed off. You were in need of a bit of a probe."

Martha spoke again. "Excuse me? What does that mean?"

He turned toward Martha to address her. "I'm sorry, young lady. I found evidence of the Doctor's name throughout this _TARDIS,_" he said, seeming to sample the word TARDIS to examine whether he approved of the taste. "But I found only this room to indicate your presence. I do not know your name. Would you tell it to me?"

"It's Martha," she said.

"Martha," Erik said, bowing slightly. "It's lovely to see you. You are indeed a beautiful woman. Where do you hail from?"

"Er, can we just keep our eyes on the ball?" the Doctor asked. "I believe she asked you what you meant when you said our brains were closed off and we needed probing. Can't just leave that one hanging there."

Erik sighed. "I've been alive a long time, Doctor."

"Really?" asked the Doctor sceptically.

"My entire existence, I have been unique. I've been special. I've been a monster, a master, a prodigy, a killer, even a ghost. But it's a lonely lot. I can't be close to anyone because they are not clever enough or fast enough or good enough, and they cannot be close to me because I am damaged and hideous. It is a paradox, and so I live alone."

"I can appreciate that," the Doctor said, looking sideways at Erik.

"Yes, I think you can," Erik said. "I came across this room, Martha. I apologise for intruding, but take comfort in knowing that I did not enter. I simply looked, and surmised that a young woman sleeps and lives here. And then I saw your quarters, Doctor. I saw where you sleep, where you choose to spend your most private moments. I found that it was the bedroom of a man who devours knowledge and covers himself with information."

The Doctor did not respond, he simply bore holes with his eyes into Erik's mask.

A pregnant pause ensued, and Erik admitted, "I can relate. I have lived in very much the same way for most of my life. I could never be loved, I could never touch, and so I chose to make love to my studies and my music. I found that it was better than the trying and failing. When I realised the same of you, and that a young woman made her bed so near to you, I decided to use my gift to help you. The fewer people there are in the world who are like me, the better."

"That's not your decision," the Doctor admonished harshly. "What you did was a violation. Everything that was ours, you made yours – our bodies, our minds. We are not puppets."

Erik looked from one to the other. "Did you not enjoy yourselves? I'm told lovemaking is quite pleasurable."

"That's not the point," the Doctor insisted.

"I might have been excessive," admitted Erik. "But my voice, it's the one and only beautiful thing I've ever had, and been able to hold onto, and I use it as a gift and a curse. The trying and the failing, Doctor. When you try and fail so many times, you grasp at what you have. You must know this, my friend, the lonely sage."

"It's not for the trying and the failing," the Doctor said. "I am special as well, Erik. I don't think you can understand _how _special. I too live a lonely existence, but you and I are different, I'm afraid."

"I believe you. But I can see in your eyes that we have much in common as well. I see obsession and fresh scars. You travel in this vessel, I don't know where, but to have so many belongings, such accommodation to travel with you, you must be rootless. I am the same. I came here, I got lost here, I chose not to find my way out again because I am escaping."

"From yourself, from your own uniqueness. Can't be done, not even by me... and believe me, I've come close."

A heavy sigh came from Erik then. "I am escaping from loss, Doctor. I am running from something that was taken from me. I loved her..." He fell gently against the wall behind him, and rested his head. "She was beautiful, brilliant, a voice like none other, and a sweetness like... oh, she was sweet. She was compassionate – she could have learned to love me, and we could have been together forever. She said she would stay, and then fate intervened and forced me to give her up. The love of my life, and now she is gone." He seemed to stare off into space.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor told him.

Erik gulped down a sob, and his hand went to his heart, grasping as though it hurt. "I cannot get round it, past it or over it. It is on my mind incessantly, like a fresh wound. I keep thinking of her – what is she doing now? Is she being taken care of? Will she remember me? How would she feel if she knew I died? Questions like that drive me mad, and there is no way for me to know. She went away and she is never coming back... not ever, until I am gone. I shall never see her again, not in this world."

Erik took several breaths in quick succession, and seemed to swoon a bit.

"Sit down," Martha advised. "You're hyperventilating."

He sat, and the Doctor sat down next to him. He calmed a bit. "I've never told this story to anyone," Erik said soberly. "A Persian friend of mine attempted to tell it to the press, but no one believed him. They called him a _griot_, a spinner of tales. Idiots, the lot of them."

"How many people have you spoken to since then?" asked the Doctor.

"Only my friend, the Daroga," he answered. "The Persian."

"How many times have you left your chambers below the Opéra?"

"Not many – I have been unwell."

The Doctor said to him, "Of course you have. Erik, this loss seems to be driving your life, your entire existence. You were strong and confident until two minutes ago, now you're a collapsed husk, talking about her. Do you think that's healthy?"

"No," Erik replied. "But passion is passion. Loss is loss. It's like a cancer. I don't know if I'll ever be whole again, Doctor." He buried his head in his hands and heaved with a great pain.

"You will be. You just need to heal. Reach out, let something else in."

With that, Erik inhaled noisily, grasped at the Doctor, and then fell suddenly backwards onto the bed.

* * *

"How is he?" asked the Doctor, sliding round the console.

Martha was relieved to see him back in his pinstripes, and even more relieved to be back fully clothed, in her own clothes. She walked slowly towards him and perched on the navigator's chair. She was carrying a backpack, and she dropped it beside her. "He'll be fine," she answered. "I think it's just been a bit too much excitement. He's asleep."

"Did you lock him in?" he asked her.

"Oh, yes," she said tossing the sonic screwdriver back to him. "I told him to use the tannoy when he wakes, but I think he'll be out for a while."

"And the singing?"

"He's promised not to use it for evil."

"Good. How long do you think we should keep him?"

"Don't know. A few days, maybe. I think he had a small stroke," she said. "And based on the facial distortion, I'd say it's not the first."

"He let you see his face?"

"I didn't give him a choice. He was lying there, lost the use of his right arm momentarily, so I took it off."

"It's because you're you, do you see?" He smiled broadly.

"No, it's because I'm pushy. He told me the last woman who did that was nearly killed. By him. Anyway, he's probably had a mild form of neurofibromatosis all of his life, which is probably why he's always worn the mask – there's some swelling and tumour formation in the forehead and around the nose. His nose is almost sunken at this point – it's very interesting. But when he speaks, the right side of his face doesn't move at all, which has nothing to do with the deformity – more likely a series of strokes. Also, I'm pretty sure he's an opium addict."

"Yeah," the Doctor said. "Absinthe and opium – all the great geniuses, of the era I'm afraid. Especially your friend VanGogh."

"Maybe we'll need to keep him for a bit longer to detox after he recovers from the strokes. Have you got any gurney straps?"

"Somewhere, yes. Did you remember to bring your own pyjamas?" he asked with a bit of a smile. He glanced pointedly at her backpack.

"Yes, and earplugs," she told him. "You know, Doctor, there have got to be a million other bedrooms on this ship. I don't need to stay in yours."

"There used to be sixteen bedrooms, but now we're down to two. I turned all the others into storage, or what have you. Besides," he said. "My bedroom has been a haven of knowledge for long enough."

He came around the console and stopped in front of her, leaning back against the lip of the controls, and crossing his arms. He looked at her earnestly for a few seconds, and then suddenly his face crinkled. "Blimey, is that what I sound like?" he asked her.

"You mean the hopelessness and pining?"

"Yeah," he said, still crinkled.

She hesitated. "Sort of."

"Ugh, how _tedious _is that?" he groaned, pulling his hand down his face.

She didn't answer. Instead, she said, "The hearts want what they want, Doctor."

"Indeed."


	9. Sky Blue

**THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER, CHILDREN. MERCI BEAUCOUP!**

* * *

SKY BLUE

They kept Erik locked in Martha's room for a couple of days, kept him company when he wanted it, left him alone when he didn't. He sang sometimes, but only as a release, a lamentation – he kept his promise not to use his voice as a hypnotic device.

The next few nights in the Doctor's bed were better for both occupants, but only for the warmth and contact it afforded them. No passions were ignited again in those first few days, but Martha was delighted just to sleep in his arms, and the Doctor wasn't exactly complaining about it either. During the day, they cared for their patient, and even had a quick adventure in the Crawlawn Galaxy, which was in danger of being taken over by a despotic ruler who wanted to mine the whole galaxy for energy particles to sell as fuel.

After seventy-two hours, Erik asked to be moved to a different room. He said he did not feel well enough to be on his own yet, but he wanted to be able to see out. The Doctor led him to the observatory, and apologised that the only bedding he could offer were a cluster of cushions on the floor. Erik was in awe – he could see out into space, observe planets, watch the swirling of explosive gases as they struggled to become one and whole. This is the phenomenon that fascinated him the most as he lay on his makeshift bed staring out into the universe.

Seven days passed, and when the Doctor arrived to bring Erik a sandwich, Erik asked him to sit.

"Doctor," he said. "I'd like to go home now."

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked, extracting he stethoscope from his coat pocket. "It's only been a week."

"I'm sure," Erik assured him. "I'm getting on in years, and I've come to realise over the past few days that I'm never going to feel myself again. Age is age, Doctor, and that is true with or without the heartbreak."

Erik ate his lunch gingerly, as he had all of his life been obliged to take food through a hole in his mask. The two great minds were noisy and darting about the room like dragonflies, though the two voices were silent for the time being.

The Doctor spoke first. "You know, I lost someone recently as well," he admitted. "Someone I loved – a woman."

"I know," Erik told him. "I could tell by the way you looked at me when you heard my story. I am accustomed to seeing pity in the eyes of those I meet – in you, I recognised an understanding."

"I do understand. I know it hurts, probably sometimes more than you can take. But it doesn't change the fact that life needs to carry on," the Doctor insisted. "_Your_ life needs to carry on without her. You have so much to offer the world, such creativity, such gifts, and what are you planning on doing with it? Burying it five stories beneath a giant stone building until one day you just die?"

"As long as I know she is still out there, I cannot leave – I cannot risk that she might come back and I won't be there for her to find me. I cannot risk that I will venture out to buy flowers or to take a cup of tea on a terrace and that I will see her walk past. That would destroy whatever composure I have left, Doctor."

"What if I said I could take you someplace where we could _guarantee_ you will not see her anywhere in the world?"

"Where is that?" Erik asked, gesturing to the great window that loomed before them, exposing the cosmos. "Another planet?"

"No. Another time."

"You're mad."

"No no," the Doctor assured him. "Think of it. One hundred years into your future. Your old love is safely gone, having lived her life freely. You can receive medical care to regulate your strokes, and you can share your extraordinary gift with the world without fear of rejection as a result of your... er, unique problem."

Erik stared at him with disbelief for quite a long time. Then he said, "Nineteen eighty-two. It sounds odd to say it."

"It's a pretty standard year, pretty good time in history for a guy like you. Although... really, avoid the fashion trends of the next decade or so. The World Wars are over, the Depression is over... granted, some really interesting stuff is still on the horizon in the Middle East, but we can't have everything, can we? And best of all, Rock and Roll has paved the way for all manner of strange music – you'll fit right in."

Erik mused once more, "Paris, 1982. It's probably unrecognisable!"

"Eh, not so much," the Doctor shrugged. "Baron Haussmann saw to that. The great Boulevards are still there, great monuments still for the photographing, and a few others you haven't seen yet. A big one is coming 1889 – wait 'til you get a load of that one! The structures new in your time are treasured antiquities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You'll just find fewer opium dens and a lot more McDonald's. You'll see."

"Yes, Doctor," Erik exclaimed. "If you can do it, I will take your advice. Can you really do it?"

"I can!"

"Beautiful! I can't wait to see what's become my Opéra in 1982."

"Er, Erik," the Doctor said. "Your Opéra is fine, though in seven years' time it will have a cross-town rival and will eventually become exclusively a ballet house. But... might I suggest that you settle someplace else? You know, not just let go of... what was her name?"

Erik sighed. "Christine."

"Don't just let go of Christine. Let go of the Opéra. Let go of the cellars beneath. Let go of all of that darkness, the reminders, the city that crushed you and literally drove you underground. For you, Paris was never _the City of Light_. So go find your own light."

"All right then, Doctor," Erik conceded. "You decide for me. You help me find my light."

"It's a deal," the Doctor exclaimed, shaking his hand and smiling.

Another silence ensued while Erik strolled over to the observatory window and stood still, looking out. "Doctor, you called my singing, my _hypnosis,_ a violation of mind and body. May I ask... what exactly happened when I sang to you and Martha for the first time?"

The Doctor gazed at him stoically. "You know what happened."

"Yes, I do," Erik said. "But the funny thing is, Doctor, not even my voice has ever had that kind of sway. Subliminal suggestion, sure – I was able to fool Christine into trusting me by singing to her in very much the same way (although for obvious reasons, I chose different lyrics). I was able to implant the suggestion, perhaps even the desire, that something carnal should happen between you and Martha. But the act itself? That was entirely your doing, and hers."

The Doctor sighed. He leaned back on his hands. "Oh, on some level, I knew that. After you stopped singing, we just kept right on... well, we didn't need your _suggestion,_ let's just put it that way."

Erik turned and faced the Doctor once more. "And for a while now, you've been lamenting this lost love... what was her name?"

"Rose."

"For too long, I'd say, you've been lamenting the loss of Rose, and letting it bring you into your own subterranean cellar," Erik said. "Metaphorically speaking. The heartbroken part of me felt drawn to the heartbroken part of you, long before I knew your name or spoke to you. I was trying to help you... I'll use your phrase... find your own light."

The Doctor smiled at the cleverness of this man. A mere human. Of course, there was no such thing, he now believed.

"So, Doctor, I will settle my life in 1982 in whatever sunny locale you may choose. But you must grab your own bit of sunlight, and let her bring you out of the dark.

Tentatively, the Doctor said, "For you, it shall be the Mediterranean..."

"...and for you, it shall be Martha."

* * *

Greece, 1982. A cliffside coloured brown and green by the mountain and trees, the Mediterranean coloured blue by the sky. Below, a thousand white stucco houses with terra-cotta roofs sat pristinely on the hillside. A church clock tower sounded the noon hour. Martha felt that this was, in fact, a fairly exotic locale, a good place for an adventure. But that's not why they were here.

Erik stood, staring out at the sea. Of his own volition, he removed his mask and allowed the warm air to caress his face. He wept. The Doctor and Martha stood behind him, hand-in-hand, waiting. At last, he turned. "Thank you, Doctor."

"You're welcome," the Doctor smiled.

"Go to Athens," Martha said. "Any good hospital should be able to give you some drugs to regulate your blood pressure – should reduce the danger of heart attack and stroke. If you do what they tell you, you'll live to eighty! And as for that neurofibromatosis..."

"The what?"

"Oh, sorry," Martha said. "The swelling round your face. As for that, there won't be effective treatments for about another ten years, but times are different now. I'm not saying people won't stare, but they won't run from you now. It will not stand in the way of your sharing your music with the world. There is mass media now, world-wide culture exists in this century, and it's only going to get better. You will thrive here."

"Yeah, just keep your head low for a bit, until you learn the ropes," the Doctor advised. He gave Erik a wad of money appropriate for this time and place. "And get a proper flat – no more living underground, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Doctor," Erik said, glancing at Martha. "You either."

The Doctor smirked, then put one arm tightly around Martha and held her to him. "I hear you as well."

They said goodbye, and Erik stood and watched the TARDIS dissipate from the world for now.

For the first time, he stood atop a hill, bathed in sun. A new world lay waiting for him, its contours lit up and shadowed with midday. He felt naked now – he was uncovered by his mask. He headed down the hill, and basked in his newfound light.

One hour later, the Doctor was suspended in the dark above the Earth. A new world lay waiting for him, her contours defined beneath a tan bedsheet. He _was _naked now – though he soon shrouded himself in a dim careless light and the same tan bedsheet. He lost himself in her, and basked in his own newfound light.

**END**


End file.
